Burial in water `normal rite' for 1,000 years: skeletons, animal skulls and other Iron Age offerings found in Thames
Human bones and other prehistoric remains from a dried-up channel of the Thames in Berkshire have shed light on one of the enduring mysteries of the last millennium BC - where and how people disposed of their dead.

The new evidence suggests that burial in rivers or lakes may have been the normal funeral rite in Britain for nearly 1,000 years before the coming of the Romans, following the demise of cremation in about 900 BC.

Marks on the bones from the Thames may also suggest, more controversially, some degree of cannibalism - or at least ritual defleshing of skeletons - in funeral ceremonies in this period.

This unprecedented evidence, if substantiated further, will mark the exceptionally late survival of a practice thought to have died out in Europe at least 5,000 years earlier.

Few human burials are known in Britain from the late Bronze Age/Iron Age periods. A number of skulls dredged up from riverbeds across Britain, and dated to the 1st millennium BC, first raised the possibility that the dead may have been buried in water - but more substantial evidence was not available. Now, however, excavations by the Oxford Archaeological Unit at Eton have produced clear signs of funeral rituals taking place on sandbank islands in the middle of the river. Skulls and bones belonging to up to 15 individuals were found on the islands, and of these eight have been radiocarbon dated to between about 1300 - 200 BC. The others are undated, but some are associated with bridge timbers previously dated to the early Iron Age.

Surrounding one island was a ring of wooden stakes, interpreted as mooring posts for funeral boats. Downstream, a wooden platform was built over another island. In addition to the human bones, the excavators found skulls from horses and cattle, and two complete pots.

By the edge of the stream, a pair of quernstones had been carefully placed one above the other. A Bronze Age ard was also found a couple of years ago in the middle of the channel, associated with charred grain and human bones.

According to excavation director Tim Allen, the evidence suggests that `a range of rituals' took place by rivers - not just the well-known deposition of weapons and metalwork - and that burial in water `was a standard part of the burial rite in the last millennium BC'.

The discovery of bones from the same skeletons, apparently in situ, implies that the dead - either as whole or part bodies - were weighted down in the water to prevent complete disintegration. A lack of scavengers' marks on the bones suggests they had not previously been exposed on dry land. Other marks, however, are more perplexing. Five long-bones, examined by Margaret Cox of Bournemouth University, seem to have been deliberately smashed in a way normally interpreted - for much earlier periods - as an attempt to extract the marrow for food. Other cutmarks suggest that the flesh may have been deliberately removed from the bone. Defleshing, or scalping, is not unknown among Iron Age burials but cannibalism is unheard-of for the period.

Mudlarking

Originally Posted by Henry Mayhew

“They may be seen of all ages, from mere childhood to positive decrepitude, crawling among the barges at the various wharfs along the river; it cannot be said that they are clad in rags, for they are scarcely half covered by the tattered indescribable things that serve them for clothing; their bodies are grimed with the foul soil of the river, and their torn garments stiffened up like boards with dirt of every possible description” London Labour and the London Poor 1861

the thames foreshore is an amazing lovely place .... visit (at low tide ) in vauxhall or even s. bank, this deserted crevasse in the middle of the city, i think there are even parties there occasionally?

down by mi6 building where the underground river effra meets the thames, you can find a good stretch of beach - composed entirely of the detritus of ages, every pebble is a piece of tile, bone, brick, glass - old flints, pipes, bottles, corroded items, nuggets & rusted lumps of stuff, printed, painted, glazed shards, blims of arcane defunct devices: ceramic transformers, graphite grommets ... probly some filthy biohaz .... gently washed over & ground down & rolled & shuffled about - so something submerged will just reappear after years and years, dredged back up by the river, literally millennia of litter...

'A river can sometimes be diverted, but it is a very hard thing to lose it altogether.'
J.G.Head, paper read to the Auctioneers' Institute in 1907

At our feet they lie low,
The little fervent underground
Rivers of London

Effra, Graveney, Falcon, Quaggy,
Wandle, Walbrook, Tyburn, Fleet

Whose names are disfigured,
Frayed, effaced.

These are the Magogs that chewed the clay
To the basin that London nestles in.
These are the currents that chiselled the city,
That washed the clothes and turned the mills,
Where children drank and salmon swam
And wells were holy.

They have gone under.
Boxed, like the magician's assistant.
Buried alive in earth.
Forgotten, like the dead.

They return spectrally after heavy rain,
Confounding suburban gardens. They infiltrate
Chronic bronchitis statistics. A silken
Slur haunts dwellings by shrouded
Watercourses, and is taken
For the footing of the dead.

Being of our world, they will return
[Westbourne, caged at Sloane Square,
Will jack from his box],
Will deluge cellars, detonate manholes,
Plant effluent on our faces,
Sink the city.

Effra, Graveney, Falcon, Quaggy,
Wandle, Walbrook, Tyburn, Fleet

It is the other rivers that lie
Lower, that touch us only in dreams
That never surface. We feel their tug
As a dowser's rod bends to the source below.

good fun to be had by all.
i had a thought the other week that the london council should buy a sand bag for every person that works along the river then make a nice little beach to enjoy at lunchtimes.
they do this in paris, also bognor regis beach is totally man made, tonnes of sand from saudi each year gets laid down mid winter.
but then again the beach that is there is lovely, i worked down in tha strange bit of pimlico for a while this year and it was lush seeing the spring turn.
water is good for the brain, watching the patterns on the river brings you into a trancelike state, honing into alpha waves.

also did you also know there is a natural spring in kings cross,which reminds me of that only fools and horses episode where they think they have found a spring in peckham.

I SHOULD HOPE SO, FOR IT IS THE LIQUID FILTH WHICH ART QUITE POTENT AND, INDEED, MORE EASILY
CONSUMED THAN THE FLUFFY FECAL FILTH WHICH EMERGES HENCE FROM THE ANAL ORIFICE.

MANY IN THE REALM OF 'JAPAN' PARTAKE IN SUCH CARNAL DELIGHTS AS OMELETTE OF CHICKEN OFFSPRING
WITH A FINE SPRINKLING OF FRESHLY SQUEEZED FILTH, SIMMERED UPON A HEATED METAL PLATTER FOR
NUMBERS OF THEIR ILK TO ENJOY!

MINE MINIONS CARE NOT FOR THE HIGH HEAT, PARTICULARLY WHEN THESE MORTALS CHOOSE OIL OF PEANUT
TO ENHANCE THE TEMPERATE FILTH, BUT STRANGELY, MINE 939,440,102,993,231,993RD MINION AND ITS
COHORTS DO ENJOY THE PARTICULAR CRISPNESS OF FECES WHICH ART FRIED AND NOT MERELY OOZED FORTH
FROM THE BOTTOM!

GREETINGS QUESTIONABLE MORTAL! PONDERING THE EARTHLY ORIGINS OF MINE FILTHLINGS AND
FILTHLORDS IS A QUESTION MOOT. MINE HOST AND I ARE NOT OF THIS EARTH. NAY! RATHER WE ABIDE UPON
THE CIRCLE OF FILTH, HOME TO ALL THAT IS FILTHY, GUNGEOUS AND MURKY OF HUE.